Coastal flooding and hurricanes in the South affect the lives of everyday people

BY DIKSHA BATRA ’26 STAFF WRITER

Warming temperatures have been affecting people in the South more than the rest of America. According to Mississippi Today, the Climate Change Risk Index for the South is 229. In contrast, the Northeast has an index of 123, the Midwest index is 147 and the West has an index of 166.

A recent study covered by The Washington Post found that the Southeast coast and the Gulf Coast have experienced a “rate of sea level rise since 2010 at over 10 millimeters — or one centimeter — per year in the region.” In comparison to the rest of the world, the rate is “more than double the global average rate of about 4.5 millimeters per year since 2010.” Damage caused by hurricanes was made worse by sea level rise, as was seen with Hurricanes Michael and Ian. “The water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea level rise and storm surge,” The Washington Post reported.

Not only are sea levels rising in the Gulf of Mexico, but temperatures in the region are rising faster than in the rest of the world. Zhankun Wang, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Texas Public Radio that “the Gulf of Mexico is just one of the areas that has a faster warming than the global ocean and twice the global rate is still in a reasonable range.” He explained that the cause behind increasing temperatures is that “the loop current and the loop current eddies actually direct a huge amount of heat from the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico. And because of the general tropical structure of the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of heat is starting to get inside it, causing the warming.”

He also explained that one of the factors behind rising sea levels is thermal expansion. Thermal expansion, according to NASA, “happens when water gets warmer, which causes the volume of the water to increase.” They also point out that “half of the measured global sea level rise on Earth is from warming waters and thermal expansion.”

Madeleine Broussard ’26, a Texas resident, faced devastation from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. “I was in eighth grade, and I was just about to start school,” Broussard said. She was sleeping, and at 4 a.m. her father woke her up to “move everything to a high place.”

However, that was not enough and soon “a church member had to come with his truck” to rescue them. She remembers putting her “dog in a suitcase so he did not have to be on the ground.”

After Hurricane Harvey, Broussard had to live in her church for a couple of weeks because her house was flooded with 1 foot of water. She had lost a lot of possessions such as childhood toys, and she “felt very sad after that.” It took her family about two years to financially recover from the storm.

Broussard remembers her community being devastated by Hurricane Harvey. She said she “could not go to school for a long time because the schools flooded” and many people “were displaced.” Many children lost their school supplies and clothes in the flood. She describes the situation as being “like a domino effect.”

Broussard pointed out “how powerful a community can be in helping each other.” During the hurricane, “people were out on boats in the middle of neighborhoods saving people during the thick of the hurricane.” According to Broussard, many people who otherwise would have drowned or been trapped in- have less socioeconomic power” and face “greater risk of displacement, [and] higher odds of being injured or killed during a natural disaster.”

Furthermore, in countries like Malawi, the financial strain resulting from droughts can “precipitate early marriages,” and floods can “force last resort prostitution as women struggle to make ends meet.” Women, especially single mothers, “depend on community networks that fail during a disaster,” making them more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Hayhoe explained.

Hayhoe went on to uplift the achievements of women and their active engagement in finding solutions to these climate-induced injustices, from the work of the Nature Conservancy in Papua New Guinea, where women-led communities are working to restore mangrove forests that take carbon out of the atmosphere, to Solar Sister, an organization “transforming the lives of women in Sub-Saharan Africa through empowering women and entrepreneurs to sell solar energy products.” She emphasized the importance of the education of women and girls as “a climate solution,” as it equips them to “face the impacts of climate change.”

“Young women are leading the climate protests,” Hayhoe explained. “Guess who leads the global climate talks?” she asked, citing Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and her vital role in sealing the Paris Agreement.

Attendees were able to see the values of the summit put into action during the showcase of research done by students from Mount Holyoke and other colleges. A diverse range of projects were on display in the Kendade Atrium. Charlotte Cai ’24, for example, presented her work with the Williams Mystic Program and the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indigenous tribe in Louisiana, focusing on bringing Indigenous knowledge to the forefront of youth

STEM education. Sohini Bhatia ’23 completed a project that was born out of her hometown, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Kariakoo market, aiming to redesign the space to improve food stability and promote sustainable food practices in urban agriculture. Linh Mai ’23 presented a design for a net-zero building, which combined traditional Vietnamese architecture with global building tactics. Mai’s design sought to battle issues of cultural erosion in Vietnam and improve the sustainability of the building sector. Aguilar, who was an advisor for three students involved in the event, called the poster session “an inspiring event.”

“We work as a small community and over the course of the semester I’ve tried to emphasize the fact that community is necessary, particularly when we want to accomplish big things. This was also the message of our main keynote speakers,” Aguilar explained. “Seeing all of the various projects and knowing that students are working on similar issues helps to remind us that we are not alone in this work,” she said.

The student projects, and the summit in general, affirm Hayhoe’s belief about the trailblazing importance of womens’ education in environmental issues, as well as Aguilar’s emphasis on the representation of diverse voices in the fight for climate justice.

“Many people are still conditioned to see and hear expertise and expert opinion from certain voices and certain bodies,” Aguilar said in her speech on Thursday “But I’d like for us to change this” with the voices of these students and “women and gender diverse people” in general “of all races and ethnicities of various religious affiliations from rural areas and from urban areas for opposite ends of socioeconomic backgrounds have been doing this work.” For Mount Holyoke College, the summit was one step toward increasing the recognition of these voices in the ongoing fight against climate change.

All about Pap Tests

BY LILY BENN ’24 STAFF WRITER

side their houses were saved by strangers. After the hurricane, she recalls that “Chick-fil-A in our city sent a bunch of sandwiches [to be distributed to community members],” while “people were donating clothes” and the schools helped by getting supplies out to those in need.

Broussard described her experience with Hurricane Harvey as “an example of being affected by global warming,” because while her house never got flooded again, homes in more coastal cities have faced further flooding. Broussard lives about an hour away from the coastline, but said, “Galveston, which is a coastal city, was really deeply affected.”

A couple of years later, Broussard’s family was affected by another hurricane. “It was in 2020 Hurricane Laura, which devastated my family really badly and they live in a smallish town,” Broussard explained. This time her family was affected in Louisiana. Some of the permanent effects, Broussard explained, were that “a lot of businesses closed permanently.”

The main reason behind global warming is corporations, according to Broussard. “I think it’s up to the government,” she said. She urged people to “call on our government.”

“We have to write to our senator, write to our local officials, we need to put restrictions on companies,” she said. She emphasized that this is necessary “to help people because so many things are affected by hurricanes.” brush is inserted into the vagina to lightly scratch the cervix to collect cervical cells.

A pap test, or pap smear, are common names for a Papanicolaou test, which identifies potential cervical cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Planned Parenthood recommends that people with cervixes start getting tested once they are 21. Planned Parenthood also explains that if you are aged 21-24, you can start to get routine pap tests every three years, or wait until you are 25 to begin getting tested, after which it is recommended to get tested every five years.

Pap tests are medical tests often done during a regular physical, pelvic exam or wellness exam, according to Planned Parenthood. These tests are highly recommended by medical providers for people with cervixes as they are designed to find signs of abnormal cells that could lead to cervical cancer, or cervical cancer itself.

Pap smears are available at the Health Center, generally as part of a gynecological exam. They are free of charge with a student health insurance plan and the supplemental or prepaid health center option.

Pap tests can also test for Human Papillomavirus or HPV. According to Planned Parenthood, HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection. Many types of HPV are relatively harmless. Still, some variants such as type 16 and type 18 can lead to cervical cancer, or in some cases can also cause cancer in the penis, vulva, vagina, anus, mouth or throat, Planned Parenthood explains. There is no absolute cure, but if HPV is detected before it becomes cancer, such as with a pap test, it can be easily treated and cancer can be prevented. Another common prevention is the HPV vaccine, which is generally recommended to be received at age 11 or 12, but can be given at ages 9 to 45.

According to Planned Parenthood, during this test, which only takes a few minutes, a doctor inserts a speculum into the patient’s vagina to open up the vaginal walls so that a sample can be taken from the cervix. After this, a small testing device such as a spatula or

Pap smears are available at the Health Center, generally as part of a gynecological exam. They are free of charge with a student health insurance plan and the supplemental or prepaid health center option.

If you do not have this plan, the charges will be placed on your student bill, according to Health Services.